Inventors and toy companies have been putting battery powered lights on sticks and toys since the first small batteries and lights made flashlights possible. (Hockenberry, U.S. Pat. No. 879,640 /1908)
Lighted wand or sword-like toys, at their most basic, use a light which is constantly on when the toy is in use. The entertaining visual value comes from waving the stick in a dark area, the persistence of vision of the eye making a connected, lit, line of illumination. Flowery patterned, lighted flexible ends have added value to this style of lighted wands (Davis, U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,032 /1990). Wands with fast blinking lights have been made possible by LED (light emitting diode) technology, creating more interesting illumination patterns. LEDs have also permitted the use of multiple colors. Integrated circuits have also brought sound to sword-like toys. Sound modules and transmitters have become miniaturized enough to include sound effects in toy swords, but not in wands.
McCaslin (U.S. Pat. No. 4,282,681 /1981) describes a lighted wand that senses the electrical resistance of the hand holding the wand, and blinks the light at a corresponding speed.
An early attempt to couple motion-sensing to lighted sticks for toy purposes can be seen in Scolari (U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,450 /1987), where a strobe flash light is discharged into the translucent blade of a sword, actuated by an inertial switch. The switch is activated by the sword striking a hard object.
Motion-sensing grew more sophisticated in Shima (U.S. Pat. No. 6,150,947 /2000), in which an accelerometer is used to help sense the difference in strength between a shake and a strike of a toy sword. A differing sound is generated depending on the strength of the sensed motion. Gastgeb et al (U.S. Pat. No. 4,904,222) describes a toy sword whose motion is sensed by picking up the oscillatory signals from a bendable inertial element.
All of the prior art in sensate wand and sword toys has required an on/off switch to set the toy electronics inactive when not in use.
It is important to note that none of the prior art of sensate wand or sword toys teaches performance that is more than an instantaneous reaction to a motion, acceleration, or other input.
In mythology and literature, wands are an implement of primary use in conjuring spells, such spells having a specific and mysterious invocation and a specific outcome or effect. Spells are usually conjured by verbal incantation and/or a specific motion of the wand.
A feeling of the power, mystery, magic and subtlety of traditional wand conjuring, presented in the form of an entertaining toy, is the objective of this invention.
It is therefore an object of the preset invention to provide a seemingly magical toy wand that is operated by performing xe2x80x9cmotion-spellsxe2x80x9dxe2x80x94precise sequences of wand motions, which result in entertaining light displays. The brilliant colored light displays are the effect, or reward of conjuring a spell correctly.
A further object of the present invention is to use a motion sensor, such as an accelerometer, and processing of its signal to allow a subtlety and complexity and array of spells and displays.
A further object of the present invention is to complement the subtlety and complexity of spells and displays with a magical-seeming construction of the wand, by making the wand""s electronics and housing small, lightweight, sturdy, and sealed.
A further object of the present invention is to use lighting displays that are so unusual, bright and colorful that the displays themselves have a magical quality, independent of their means of generation.
A further object of the present invention is to control all aspects of wand operation purely by motion of the wand, without resorting to the use of switches, even to end play sessions. The magical feel of the wand is preserved and augmented by the avoidance of mundane mechanical and electrical contrivance. A (very long-lasting) sealed (or non-obvious) battery would also abet this objective.
A further objective is to provide very long battery life by use of the power-savings and xe2x80x9csleepxe2x80x9d modes of modern microprocessors.
A toy wand has an elongated casing having a handle end and a tip end. The casing encloses a means for detecting motion of the wand, a means for emitting a human response and a microprocessor that connects the detector and the emitter. The microprocessor includes a library of target motion sequences, a time buffer for recording the motion history up to the present, and a means for repeatedly comparing the motion history with the target motion sequences. The microprocessor also includes a means for activating the emitting when a match has been detected between the motion history and the target motion sequence.